Quote (dro94 @ Apr 4 2020 08:53am)
Err...no the chief scientific officer literally said on tape they were going for herd immunity. They then backtracked on it.
http://www.strifeblog.org/2020/04/02/uk-government-policy-in-facing-the-coronavirus-threat-an-interview-with-professor-calum-semple/Quote
TJM: Is the UK really taking a different approach to other countries? If so why?
CS: The UK certainly did take a different approach in the lead up to the shutdown. I am quite pleased that we did not go for a kneejerk shutdown in the 3-4 weeks before we did. That period allowed a degree of calmness and preparation to go on at a very important stage. Where otherwise we could have had a huge, essentially, “phony war”. There was a phony war during the 2009 outbreak, where we saw a spike in GP attendances and health-seeking behaviour that arrived 3-4 weeks before the real flu arrived. This overwhelmed GPs who were prevented from doing their regular work and providing standard healthcare for those who needed it. The way the government policy managed information and society this time was far more sophisticated and prevented a phony war.
The careful considered management by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Professor Chris and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) Sir Patrick Vallance in the month leading up to the lockdown prevented the excessive health-seeking behaviour that could have caused an earlier overwhelming of GPs and A&E practitioners.
TJM: Do you think the government has done a good job so far?
CS: I think the government has done a good job in cautiously and systematically raising fear in a controlled manner, and this can be seen from the very careful messaging from the CMO and CSO. You can work this out from the press conferences and news clips, which were deliberately telling people about the severity of the crisis. It was realistic and conducted sensibly.
This approach got people to start stocking up – and yes some people were panic buying – but most people stocked up. Over the last 3 weeks of stocking up to the situation we are in now, it has made the lockdown a lot more manageable. Most people have filled their larders, and no one can say they weren’t warned about it. Supermarkets have been warned in advance and are able to cope with the disruptions in demand.
Think about how you manage and keep an army in readiness. There is a level of preparation, training, regular exercises to keep the army in readiness. Equipment, which is not used is checked, serviced to ensure it actually works. And this is the same for us. We have a stockpile of medication and a stockpile of masks, the equivalent to the beans and bullets in the depots.
TJM: Is “herd immunity” Government policy?
CS: It was never policy. It was an assumption by lots of speculators from the side-lines. I never saw a concept that we are going for herd immunity – this is not the case. The terminology used by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “flattening the sombrero”. It sounds rather crude, but it is not a bad way of explaining how you flatten an epidemic curve. It is unavoidable that we will get exposure. But what is going to cause greater societal disruption is a sharp spike in epidemic activity that will overwhelm services. And this is not just about health services but also national services. [The minutes of NERVTAG are publicly available.]
Is there something inherently wrong with what he said?